“No, but I’d like to be,” Illya replied. “Anyway, I think this is my car.”
He nodded toward a two-year-old Ford that pulled up at the curb opposite the baggage recovery point. He recognized the plain-clothed man who got out from behind the wheel as Sergeant Hosking of the Los Angeles police homicide squad. They had worked together before.
Hosking came across the sidewalk.
“Mr. Kuryakin?” he asked as if he had never seen Illya. “I am your driver.”
“Good,” Illya said. “First we will drive Miss LeBrun to Hollywood.”
After their luggage was stowed in the car, Illya helped Teresa into the back. He got in beside her. She stared gravely ahead, answering his attempts at conversation with the shortest possible monosyllables.
Kuryakin looked back. A car pulled out from the curb to follow them. He turned his head around, noting that Hosking was watching the car also. The homicide sergeant did not appear concerned, so Illya was sure that they were being followed by another police car.
He leaned back, silent after his abortive attempt to engage Theresa in conversation. It seemed impossible that she could lead him into a THRUSH trap, riding as they were in an unmarked police car and followed by another. Still he could not shake his feeling of uneasiness.
“Something is wrong about this whole setup,” he told himself. But he couldn’t put his finger on the exact cause of his uneasiness.
His hunch was that Teresa LeBrun was the most dangerous person he had ever tangled with. In spite of her grave quietness, Illya got the distinct impression of suppressed volcanic fire in her.
He wondered if he was making a mistake. But without other leads, she seemed the most likely one. With THRUSH set to move at any moment, there wasn’t time to check other leads out. He was staking everything on this woman being what he suspected, a THRUSH link in the Million Monsters affair.
“If I’ve made a mistake,” he thought, “it’ll be too late to try another tack.”
He was thinking of Napoleon Solo when Theresa suddenly reached over and touched his arm. The car was just rolling down the off ramp of the freeway.
“Mr. Kuryakin!” she said, an undertone of excitement coming into her voice.
“Yes?” Illya said. For some unknown reason he felt a jolt of apprehension.
Theresa did not answer, but Illya felt a sharp sting in his arm.
“What -” he began, but his tongue was suddenly thick. He tried to move, but couldn’t. Incredibly, however, his mind remained clear.
“What’s the matter?” Hosking said, turning his head back.
“Please!” Theresa said in a cold voice. “Keep your eyes on the road. Do not look back. If you do, I will kill Mr. Kuryakin!”
“Lady,” Hosking said, “you can’t get away with this. There is -”
“I know!” she snapped. “There is a police car following us. You Americans are positively juvenile. Just keep driving.”
Hosking swallowed hard and pulled up to stop for a red light. Instantly Theresa’s hand flashed out. The street lamp drew a tiny reflection from the needle that protruded from the ring on her hand. She drove the needle into Hosking’s neck. Like Kuryakin, he felt a sting like a wasp.
“What the -” he began and then fell silent, slightly hunched over the wheel.
“Straighten up!” Theresa said sharply.
Hosking drew himself erect.
“Keep driving!” she snapped.
Obediently he put the car in gear. Theresa leaned back. “And I thought these men from U.N.C.L.E. were interesting adversaries. Poof! They are like children!”
She laughed softly and glanced across at Illya, sitting quietly by her side, looking straight through the windshield.
“From now on, Mr. Kuryakin,” she said, her voice savage, “I will give the orders!
THREE
THE DRIVER reacted perfectly to Theresa’s crisp orders. He drove on through Hollywood to an apartment hotel off Sunset Strip not far from the Mallon Studios.
Illya Kuryakin sat beside her. He was in full possession of his faculties. He understood everything that was going on, but for some odd reason could not react to it. The injection she had given each man made him completely subservient to her orders. Even realizing what was happening, they were powerless to break the chemical spell.
When they pulled up in front of the hotel, Theresa laughed softly and said to Kuryakin, “Now run back like a nice little boy and thank your cop friends for their service. Tell them you will not require their services. Say you received a call on that cute little walkie-talkie fountain pen of yours from U.N.C.L.E. headquarters. Waverly informed you that the menace you feared has been taken care of.”
Obediently Kuryakin climbed from the car. He walked back to the other police car.
“Thanks, boys,” he said. “Everything is fine now. Waverly just called from New York. Everything has been taken care of. He said to express his appreciation for your help.”
“Okay, Illya,” the driver said. “Give us a call any time we can help you.”
Kuryakin walked back to Theresa, who had stepped out of the car. Hosking was pulling away in obedience to her orders. Illya stood looking at her. His mind was in a turmoil. He was perfectly aware of what he had done. He knew that she was with THRUSH. He knew that he was being led into a trap that would mean his death. But he was powerless to take any action unless directed by Theresa LeBrun.
The girl had a bellhop take her bags into the hotel. She did not bother to register. A taxi pulled up beside them there on the sidewalk.
“Get in,” Theresa said to Illya Kuryakin.
He took his place in the back seat. She got in beside him. The driver shifted into gear and began a weaving route through several turns. It seemed to the anguished Kuryakin that he was trying to throw off any possible pursuit.
At no time did the girl give him any orders. The driver picked his own way and finally drove them to the back entrance of the Mallon studios.
The iron gate swung open as they approached. It clanged quickly shut behind them. They drove through the back lot with the towering false fronted medieval castle set looming to their right.
Kuryakin sat stonily beside the girl. Although his body was completely at ease, his mind was in a turmoil. Never in a lifetime of danger and strange adventure had he ever experienced anything like this. He had been drugged many times. Never before had he met with one that affected his body, turned it into a slave-zombie, but left his mind to function apparently unaffected.
It was as if the strange chemical she injected into his body from her ring had disconnected his mind from the body. The body then passed to her control.
As the car swung out of the castle set road and turned into what looked like a reconstruction of lower east side in New York, Theresa LeBrun looked over at Illya and laughed softly.
“Are you wondering what has happened to you?” she asked. “You do know what is going on. You can hear every word I say, can’t you?”
“Yes,” Illya said.
It was not his mind that answered. His tongue was obeying impulses from Theresa’s mind instead of his own.
“Let me tell you about it,” she said. “That is part of the fun. And it is fun, you know, to defeat a worthy adversary. Although, I must say that you turned out to be disappointingly easy.”
She sighed and went on, “After you slipped out of my death traps twice, I thought I had at last met a man worth fighting. But you were a disappointment, like all the others.”
She laughed softly. Her face, barely visible in the darkness, glowed. “Yes, Kuryakin,” she said, “I’ll tell you, for you have but a short time to live. I was in Paris running tests on this new slave drug which I helped develop for THRUSH. I received word that you were coming on a mission that would be dangerous to THRUSH. I was told to make contact with a paid assassin named LeBlanc and arrange for your immediate liquidation. Instead I decided to do it myself.